Page 42 of Loathing My Boss
Huh.
Yeah, okay, she’s not going to bring Desmond into this. I’m done for tonight.
Time for…bed. Besideher. Without a purity wall providing even a false sense of security.
Finding my resolve, I shut down my computer, pack up my reading glasses, and put my outline back in its folder. Keenly aware of Crisis’s eyes following me, I gather my bathroom kit and nightclothes.
She hasn’t moved by the time I’ve washed up and changed into my pajamas—a pair of grey sweats and a black loose-fit tee. Before her, I slept topless. But the moment I realized she was not shy where it concerned barging into my room and waking me up in the morning, I came to the conclusion that I…was.
Shy, I mean.
I am very, very shy…
A shy guy, without a chance. The only thing I have going for me is a refusal to run from this fight.
Focused on her laptop, she continues typing until she realizes I’ve returned. Blinking at me, she makes to shut down her computer, so I lift my hand. “I’m not going to sleep yet. I’m going to read for a little while first, so you don’t have to stop whatever you’re doing.”
“Reading.” She closes her laptop anyway. “That’s not a bad idea.”
As I slip under the blankets on my side of the bed, she slips out, getting her own change of clothes on the way.
I’m not sure I breathe the entire time I’m waiting for her to get back.
I’m certain I don’t breathe when she slides into bed with me, turns her back toward me, and brings up the Kindle app on her phone.
Forgetting myself and my burning lungs, I…stare.
At the curve of her back and the dip of her waist before the rise of her hips. At the way the blankets mold to her body, rising and falling with her every inhale. At her fingers mindlessly toying with the tips of her hair as she scrolls through page after page of a book I can’t make out the words of without putting on the reading glasses I have in their case on the nightstand beside me.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
“A book.”
Insightful.
“What are you reading?” she asks.
It occurs to me I haven’t yet unlocked my phone or looked at my library. I reach for my reading glasses. “I don’t know yet.”
She rolls over, facing me. Her shoulder birthmark peeks out from beneath her camisole strap as she takes me in. Her fingers splay. “I’ll pick. Do you have Kindle Unlimited?”
I do not know why I unlock my phone and hand it to her, but I do know I’d do it again, and again, and again if the same wicked little smile would overtake her as she wiggles each time.
She gasps, taps something, and hands it to me. “Here. Read aloud.” She snuggles a little deeper into the blankets, gazing at me with those big brown eyes.
I am…frightened, yet intrigued.
Clearing my throat, I shift my attention to the cover on my screen.
My mouth opens to begin reading, but the words getstuck as the picture before me attempts to register.
I do not know what I’m looking at.
Crisis giggles, biting her lip. “Go on. Read.”
I can’t fight my own smile as I sigh and narrate the, um, title: “Having Quadruplets for My Warrior Alien Mate.”
“Wow,” she breathes, awestruck. “What keywords. What marketing. Applause.”
